Eglė Radžiūtė -
Didždvaris gymnasium – a school in Lithuania, which is unique not only by the architecture and history, but also by offering students two programs: the national program and the international baccalaureate diploma program (IBDP or IB). I and my classmates make up the smaller part of the students by choosing to study in the IB. We do not feel superior because of it, but we do have some goals that we must reach; for if we do not, we will not get a diploma. One of them is CAS (Creativity, Action, Service). We create some goals every time we are doing CAS, and most of them do not change: we want to help people, learn new information, develop new skills, increase the level of quality for the skills we already have and remember that we can learn something valuable from any person or activity.
Food bank – the non-profitable organization, which helps those who do not have enough money to protect themselves from hunger. It provides great help to people all over the world. Not only by getting the needed food supplies to poor families, elderly and children’s homes, but also by teaching people how to be selfless, helping, tolerant citizens.
This year, me and my classmates from Didždvaris gymnasium volunteered to help this organization fulfill its mission – help as many people as possible by inspiring people to donate as much as possible. This year donations would be given to a Charity and Support Fund “Vilties Kalnas” (Eng. “Hope Hill”). It provides help to twenty-five families, which were created by people who lived in children’s homes.
We were separated in groups of five or six and each of us had our own job. I and my partner were supposed to greet people, which came to shop, and give advertisements, information about the “Food Bank” action to them. The others had to put the donated food into boxes, fill in papers about what was donated and how many people have made the donations. The time passed very quickly; perhaps because we only had to work for one hour, or maybe because we had a great time completing the goals we set up for ourselves. For example, I wanted to hand out as many advertisements as possible, inform people about this action and lift up people’s spirits by greeting them with a smile.
Many people were generous, kind, friendly and interested by this action. They asked what organization or fund will be getting the donations, what kinds of food they could donate. Of course, there were those who made fun of this action, by offering to buy alcohol, so “they could have more fun”. Some walked right past us, not even looking at us or claiming that they have already donated. Luckily, there were only a few of these kinds of people, so we were not discouraged and we did not lose our enthusiasm.
It was the first time for me and some of my classmates to be part of this action. Because of this reason, I felt anxious, uncomfortable standing in front of the shop’s entrance waiting for people. It was a completely new role for me, and since I am shy, I had to step out of my comfort zone and converse for a few seconds with complete strangers. Luckily, all those negative feelings faded away as more and more people started asking about the “Food Bank” action. It was really great that I was not alone; my partner was near and I felt more self-confident knowing that we all were on the same boat.
In conclusion, this action has helped me develop in more ways than one. I gained more knowledge about the action itself, about the support funds, what people desperately need and the ways of donating and helping out. I also developed my creative and communicative skills, that will help me in the future when doing similar jobs or when working with a group of people I am not familiar with. It gave me more self-confidence and, most importantly, let me serve my community as a citizen.
